I had fun last week photographing a new musical ensemble that is sponsored by the Massachusetts International Festival of the Arts. The Victory Players are (from left to right) Han Chen, Giovanni Perez, Elly Toyoda, Robert Rocheteau, Eric Schultz, YuMi Bae, and Conductor Tian Ng.

The top photograph was made at the Victory Theatre in Holyoke, which is about to be restored to its former glory, but currently has an abandoned feel to it. The photo with the piano was shot on the Mount Holyoke College campus and in spite of looking totally staged, was really quite spontaneous. Robert Rocheteau was taking selfies and it just sort of fell together for me.

I also did individual shots of each of the musicians. There is something about this photograph of Robert Rocheteau that really grabs me. He has fabulous hair.

On Friday night I went to a performance of the ensemble in Holyoke and stopped on the way home at Cindy’s in Granby for an ice cream. I made it just before closing. My friend Alex always referred to every summer roadside stand as a “Whippy Dip”, and this one is a classic.

To end the week, my friend Lisa and I went to a Red Sox / White Sox game on Saturday. She had gotten amazing seats for us and the weather was perfect for a 4:05 start. I took this from our seats just after a J.D. Martinez home run, and I think he was still rounding the bases as I fired the shutter. The (Red) Sox won 4-2.

I apologize for the long gap in posting about the suitcases. It has been an incredibly busy time. I have been devoting most of my mental energy getting prepared for a series of talks at the University of Texas Medical Branch that are scheduled for next week. This is a huge honor for me, as I will be a visiting Osler scholar. When I was in Galveston in 2016 presenting to NAMI Gulfcoast I was approached by Dr. Dwight Wolf about returning to speak at UT to the Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences department. Cristine and I fly out on Sunday (weather dependent), and there are events scheduled for the whole week.

Here is a rundown.

Monday the 15th – I’ll be speaking about the suitcases and my other work at the Galveston Arts Center from 6-8 pm.

Tuesday the 16th – Osler Club Grand Rounds, Temple B’nai Israel, 3008 Avenue O, Galveston. I believe this is open to the public but reservations are required.

Earlier that day I will present the project to residents at UTMB. This is not open to the public.

Wednesday the 17th – IMH Colloquium at UTMB during the lunch hour. Jennie Sealy Hospital. This might be open to the public, I’m not sure.

That evening I’ll be speaking at the Galveston Historical Foundation about the suitcases and my other documentary institutional work. 6-7 pm at Menard Hall, 3302 Avenue O, Galveston.

Thursday the 18th – There is an open mic event with Dr. Steve Fisher with a display of photographs of both of our work. Dr. Fisher has been photographing the collection of medical specimens at UTMB. Should be interesting. 3rd Floor Old Red. I’ve been told it is an amazing building.

I got a call a few weeks ago from Craig Williams telling me that a trunk had been discovered in the attic of the Covert Funeral Home in Ovid, NY that belonged to a woman who was a nurse at Willard in the early part of the 20th Century.

At that time Craig wasn’t too sure of many of the details but thought I might be interested if anything came of it.

Craig has been working at the Romulus Historical Society with Peggy Ellsworth who worked at Willard and has been a great friend to the suitcases project. Peg has been the go-to person for all things Willard since the institution closed in 1995.

Last Friday Paul McPherson who is the current director of the funeral home brought the trunk to the historical society for Craig and Peg to have a look. They were really enthused and Craig called to see if I could take a few photos as he unpacked the items and started to conserve and catalogue the collection.

The contents of the trunk are in great shape, and it is amazing to see how well preserved the items are.

I love seeing these old commercial products in their early packaging.

There were several mounted photographs in the trunk, as well as this envelope which contain a large number of photographic negatives.

Craig scanned a few and the quality is amazing.

The Willard baseball team was almost certainly made up of staff, and not patients. But one has to wonder if any of the patients ever made it onto the diamond.

I think this scan was from a print. In addition to having worked at Willard as a nurse, she was a graduate of the institution’s school of nursing. Craig and Peg are looking at the images to try to figure out which one in the photos is Anna. None are identified on the back, so it might be quite a job.

The above photo is especially exciting, as the building in the background is the sheltered workshop where the suitcases were stored in the attic and were rediscovered in 1995. The collection of cases dates from 1910 to 1965 and Anna was at Willard starting in the late teens, so it is very likely that she worked with some of the owners.

As we found in many of the suitcases there is a broad range of items in Anna’s trunk; she had saved things that can tell a fairly complete story of her life, and more broadly, what life at Willard was like in the 1920s.

This box contains a lot of personal correspondence, including some very interesting postcards.

It took a minute to figure out this one.

It became clear once we saw the “soldier’s mail” postmark. Let’s hope H. C. Norris made it through the war safely.

As a nurse at Willard, she would have lived on the grounds and received her mail there.

This inscription is especially touching and a bit mysterious.

Craig and I didn’t have much time to go through the notebooks, but this is a huge trove of original source material that will be interesting to study once everything is catalogued.

Perhaps the most intriguing is this small diary from 1918 which contains day to day accounts of Anna’s life at Willard. To the left is a playbill for “Farmer’s Daughter” which played at Hadley Hall on the Willard grounds.

Anna’s Student’s Note Book is pretty interesting.

Her hand writing is very readable. I didn’t see any crossed out sections as I flipped through the pages.

This small brooch is pretty.

The trunk itself is is great shape.

Anna is buried in the Holy Cross Cemetery in Ovid. Craig took this photo of her gravestone.

The Romulus Historical Society will be putting an exhibit together of the trunk and contents sometime soon. The museum is located in the town of Willard and is only open until the end of September. It is not clear if anything will happen before then, but Peggy is eager for the collection to see the light of day. I’ll update here when I know details. There is obviously a ton of work to be done researching Anna’s life, but this is really an amazing find.

Special thanks go to Paul McPherson for contacting the historical society with this incredible look into the life of Anna. A find like this really brings history alive. It will be interesting to see what develops once everything is conserved and catalogued. And as always thanks to Peggy Ellsworth for her tireless work in remembering the patients and staff at Willard, and to Craig Williams for keeping me in the loop.

I’m not exactly sure what the white fabric object is in Kenneth Q’s case, but it is interesting. The orange toothbursh is kind of nice.

Elizabeth C’s dress is so beautiful.

The cotton fabric is soft and wonderful.

There are 3 different places on the above photograph where I had to obscure Amelia’s surname, and it still makes me sad every time I have to do so. The Office of Mental Health pr guy told me a few years ago that it was necessary due to the stigma of mental illness. It is precisely that attitude that prolongs that stigma; the Willard patients deserve to be recognized as being more than just patients at a New York State asylum.

On Wednesday, I fly to Texas to present the suitcases project at a dinner sponsored by NAMI Waco. Here is a link to the event. If you are in the area, it would be great to see you and make a connection.

I am getting a lot of editing done lately, and am feeling great about the images.

Stuart’s (maybe Stuert, it appears both ways) case was full of interesting toiletries. Several of the residents had Dr. Lyon’s Tooth Powder.

I have always wanted to avoid “fetishizing” the objects that came to Willard with the patients, but the design of the items in Stuert’s case really grabbed me.

The attention to detail in commercial design during the time of these products is impressive.

This Ever-Ready shaving brush had quite a bit of use.

I love the typeface (or is it font?) on the Mennen talcum powder. One wonders about the “neutral” tint, and on just how many faces it wouldn’t show.

The above image is one of my favorites from the project.

The Mennen Company is still in business, and are mostly known for their deodorants.

Lander Perfumer; New York, Memphis, Montreal, and……Binghamton!

I am glad I (or Peg) thought to photograph the back of the “Locktite Humidizer”.

It keeps your tobacco fresh, and they are definitely out of business.

Thanks for following. I have been uploading a ton of new cases on the Willard Suitcases site. Go check it out, and don’t forget to click on the “view all” link at the bottom of each page. 25 is the default number and in many instances, there are more than that number in the gallery.

I was listening to “With Great Pleasure” on Radio 4 today while I was editing these photographs and heard this Oscar Wilde quote from “De Profundus”. “Where there is sorrow, there is holy ground”. I think he was right on the money.

Our time in Dublin was limited, and it was difficult to decide what to do for the last day and a half we were there. We were really interested in seeing the historic Kilmainham Gaol, as it was highly recommended. The only way to get in is with a guide, but Brian was really knowledgeable and we learned a ton about the history of Ireland.

My interest in institutional architecture and abandoned buildings goes way back, and it was a treat to be able to walk through this important historic site and have time to photograph.

For me walking through hallways like this is the best way for me to connect with the history of a place.

The building was abandoned for many years and left to deteriorate, but a group largely made up of volunteers has worked for years to make it accessible to the public.

The tour was fairly crowded, but it was pretty easy to hang back and photograph whenever I saw something interesting.

The main hall in the first photograph was built based on an idea of imprisonment that came from the Pentonville prison in England, whereby prisoners were isolated in individual cells rather than thrown together in large rooms. This was meant to foster a more peaceful environment to aid in rehabilitation , but conditions were still quite brutal.

The cross at this end of the yard marks the spot where James Connolly was executed by firing squad. If you get a chance to read about him in the link, the story of his life and death is very moving. I think the best thing about the tour of the gaol is how much Irish history we learned.

After the prison, a trip to the Guinness Brewery seemed like a good idea.

This is an enormous industrial complex in Dublin. Another tour, but this one was self guided but also quite informative.

It was cool to see this little monument to William Sealy Gosset since I had just seen an article in the Times of London about his work on probability and how Nate Silver uses the same basic model to predict US elections. The article is behind a paywall, but you might be able to sign up for a free trial. It is worth a read.

This is the handle of a big safe that held the yeast strain that is still used in making Guinness. / The tour ended with a complimentary pint of the black stuff, which as always, goes down a treat.

We had a few hours on the day we flew home so were able to see the Book of Kells at Trinity College. We were told not to miss it and it was amazing. No photos are allowed in the exhibit, but the tour does include a visit to the Long Room Library.

More crowds, but the room is stunning. Love the marble busts.

Here is old Demosthenes checking things out.

There is an active conservator’s lab that the public can view, and I was reminded of my work on the suitcases as the cotton string used to wrap the books is the same that the New York State Museum used on the cases.

Here is a piece of it tied to the grate that separates the conservators from the public.

We had a bit of time before catching the bus to the airport to walk through St Stephen’s Green and enjoy the beautiful autumn day.

Back home now to return to spending a lot of time editing the suitcases, and to begin reaching out to publishers and museums. Thanks for following.

The visit to WUNC went really well. Frank Stasio was a great interviewer and it was fun to chat with him and Rose Hoban, whose interest in the suitcases brought me to Raleigh for the Lives on the Hill event. Here is a link to the broadcast.

I am staying with my friends Eric and Gail Vaughn and yesterday they drove me over the Dix grounds so I could get my bearings. I saw this marker for the cemetery and we stopped to walk around.

I was actually shocked to see that the grave markers used names instead of numbers as New York State does. And it made me both sad and angry that New York still refuses to allow former patients to be identified.

It would seem such an easy thing to change, but New York State OMH has no interest in doing so.

Please go to Lin Stuhler’s site and read her goodbye post. She has said it much better than I ever could.

Tonight is the reception at The Mahler Fine Art gallery in Raleigh and tomorrow is the big public event. If you are in the area please come by. Thanks for following.

I was looking at some photographs that I took in 2010 of artifacts from the Attica Prison uprising, and came across these shots from a visit to a nearby New York State cold war bunker. I first mentioned it in a post here.

When Craig Williams and I went down into the bunker, we were accompanied by a couple of local policemen who thought there might be people inside, as the gate had been forced open. They checked it out and the space was empty, so we went in. As you can see by the beads of water on the wall, it was really humid and musty.

There was electricity, so most of the fluorescent lights were still working.

Abandoned spaces have always fascinated me, and I’ve been lucky to get access to some amazing buildings.

The idea that the usefulness of a place can end abruptly, and that an organization like the State of New York can basically walk away from it is especially interesting. I had the same feeling with my Silent Voices project (click on “asylums”).

It is amazing what gets left behind. There is some pretty old technology in this shot. My dad had a Wollensack tape recorder like the one above that I used to play with as a kid.

There are usually lots of keys in places like this.

I am not sure when New York State shut down these sites, but I believe there were 6 or 7 of them scattered around the state.

There must have been some permanent staff who worked here, but I would guess that it was a small crew that could have been expanded on during a crisis.

It must have been an interesting place to work.

I realized while writing this post that I knew very little about the history of these sites, so with a quick internet search, I found this great resource.

The U. S. Government logo for civil defense is a beautiful design; as I was growing up in the 60s it was everywhere.

As were these old rotary phones.

Both the Federal and State governments were active in distributing information about what to do in the case of an emergency situation, which seemed to always be about some sort of attack from the USSR.

This is a page from an old Ridgid Tool calendar. There were a bunch of these scattered around the floor.

Here’s one last shot of the main room. Thanks to Craig for setting me up to get into this place. I’ll try to do something with the Attica artifacts sometime soon.

I finally figured out why I have so many new followers. WordPress featured me on their main site, and I want to thank them for doing so. I was going to try to explain to you recent followers what I am trying to do here, but it is kind of obvious if you just jump around through my previous posts. So, welcome and thanks for following.

I just got word that the governor of New York State has signed Senate Bill S840A. Here is the summary of the bill; “(Senate Bill S840A ) relates to patients interred at state mental health hospital cemeteries; directs the release of the name, birthdate and date of death of certain patients 50 years after the date of death”. I am not totally clear about what “certain patients” means, and to whom this information may be released, but this is certainly good news. Here is a link to two earlier posts I did about the cemetery and the whole issue of names. Click on Coleen Spellecy’s and Lin Stuhler’s links to read about the two people who did the most to get this bill through the legislature. And thanks to Joe Robach for being persistent in getting the bill passed and signed into law.

The issue of not being allowed to name the owners of the suitcases has always bothered me. I have been expressly told by both the New York State Museum and the New York Office of Mental Health that due to state law, I am forbidden to use the surnames of the patients when I publish the photographs, even though some of those names have already been mentioned in local newspapers and in other sources. I feel that not using surnames continues to dehumanize the folks who were already stigmatized just by being patients at Willard. Due to this new law, it might be possible, in some instances, to begin using full names. All in all, this is a pretty exciting development.